Engineering Students’ Industrial Internship Experience Perception and Satisfaction: Work Experience Scale Validation

Abstract

An essential aspect of higher education institutions’ academic curricula for engineering courses is the students’ industrial internship programs. In the literature, it is well accepted that such programs provide valuable learning outcomes and increase the graduates’ employment prospects. Thus, it is paramount to evaluate the internship programs’ quality to identify opportunities to improve their design and implementation. However, that evaluation typically depends on self-designed academic assessment surveys of questionable validity. The purpose of this paper is to assess engineering students’ perceptions of their internship experiences. For that purpose, the validation of a recently adapted version of the Work Experience Questionnaire (WEQ) was carried out on a sample of 447 engineering students that participated in industrial internship programs offered by Portuguese public universities and polytechnic schools. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to confirm the suitability of the model proposed by the WEQ’s authors on this study’s sample. The psychometric qualities were evaluated through convergent and discriminant validity. The results showed that the model fit the sample well, and convergent and discriminant validity was established. The general competencies subscale was the most important for the participants—specifically, the competency of solving problems. Differences concerning the WEQ and gender, company size, and compensation were found and discussed. This study provides researchers in the field with a new tool validated explicitly for engineering students.

Las prácticas profesionales y su relación con el fortalecimiento del perfil del ingeniero industrial

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Compilation of Chemistry Experiments for an Online Laboratory Course: Student’s Perception and Learning Outcomes in the Context of COVID-19

“…Then, the perception related to the experiments was explored by applying surveys monitoring the learners' previous background with online laboratories, their expectations, and their sense of accomplishment at the end of all the sessions. The answers provided were statistically treated and analyzed, considering the evidence of associations between the learning quality and the perceptions described by the CEQ (Course Experience Questionnaire) scales [32][33][34].…”

University–Industry Linkages in Promoting Technical Skills for Human Resource Development, Case Study of Thailand

“…In the Work Experience Questionnaire (WEQ) 1 where 447 engineering students from Portuguese public universities and polytechnic schools participated, the effectiveness of industrial internship for engineering students was demonstrated. As the result of the internship, most students not only gained the technical competence but also non-technical abilities such as teamwork skills and positive attitudes and readiness into the world of work (Teresa Nogueira, 2021).…”